Graye entered
the waiting-room, and the door being open he listlessly observed the
movements of a woman wearing a long grey cloak, and closely hooded, who
had asked for a ticket for London.

He followed her with his eyes on to the platform, saw her waiting there
and afterwards stepping into the train: his recollection of her ceasing
with the perception.

4. EIGHT TO TEN O'CLOCK A.M.

Mrs. Crickett, twice a widow, and now the parish clerk's wife, a
fine-framed, scandal-loving woman, with a peculiar corner to her eye by
which, without turning her head, she could see what people were doing
almost behind her, lived in a cottage standing nearer to the old
manor-house than any other in the village of Carriford, and she had on
that account been temporarily engaged by the steward, as a respectable
kind of charwoman and general servant, until a settled arrangement could
be made with some person as permanent domestic.

Every morning, therefore, Mrs. Crickett, immediately she had lighted
the fire in her own cottage, and prepared the breakfast for herself and
husband, paced her way to the Old House to do the same for Mr. Manston.
Then she went home to breakfast; and when the steward had eaten his, and
had gone out on his rounds, she returned again to clear away, make his
bed, and put the house in order for the day.

On the morning of Owen Graye's departure, she went through the
operations of her first visit as usual--proceeded home to breakfast, and
went back again, to perform those of the second.

Entering Manston's empty bedroom, with her hands on her hips, she
indifferently cast her eyes upon the bed, previously to dismantling it.

Whilst she looked, she thought in an inattentive manner, 'What a
remarkably quiet sleeper Mr. Manston must be!' The upper bed-clothes
were flung back, certainly, but the bed was scarcely disarranged.
'Anybody would almost fancy,' she thought, 'that he had made it himself
after rising.'

But these evanescent thoughts vanished as they had come, and Mrs.
Crickett set to work; she dragged off the counterpane, blankets and
sheets, and stooped to lift the pillows. Thus stooping, something
arrested her attention; she looked closely--more closely--very closely.
'Well, to be sure!' was all she could say. The clerk's wife stood as if
the air had suddenly set to amber, and held her fixed like a fly in it.

The object of her wonder was a trailing brown hair, very little less
than a yard long, which pr